A4: How to start a gathering or birth a church

Biblical intro

‘And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.’ Matthew 16:18 NIVUK

Come, see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done. Could this be the Messiah?’ They came out of the town and made their way towards him…Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I’ve ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. John 4:29-30, 39-41 NIV UK

At a glance

‘I will build my Church’ This is about joining in with God’s mission in our communities.

Contextually Relevant and emerging from Friendships New gatherings/churches are unlikely to look like existing models or even each other. Something that fits the local context and emerges from what God is doing within local friendships shares the good news in relevant and relatable ways.

Accessible Content New gatherings seek to include those with no existing knowledge or church or faith

No hard sell This is the work of the Spirit not the missionary!

Key Points

This How to guide is about starting a public gathering on the new estate. Some will see this as birthing a church, some will understand ‘church’ as something that the team or pioneer embodied right from the beginning and call this the birth of a gathering, and some will see this as a missional gathering connected to, but not in itself, church.

‘I will build my Church’

It can be easy to imagine that churches and new disciples are created through human action. Yet it is God who builds the church and the inner working of the Holy Spirit which transforms people. This guide assumes that we are seeking to join in with God’s action rather than operate purely on our own initiative.

Contextually Relevant and emerging from Friendships

Penny, Fiona and Ali have all been involved in birthing contextually relevant church gatherings that have emerged from their community engagement and friendships. All three have a connection to other community activities.

Penny had reflected upon what a church gathering might look like in her community. It quickly became obvious that something contextually relevant needed to emerge. Penny’s new community was a designated ‘healthy new town’. Her partnerships with the development group and other stakeholders were around this agenda. Friendships were growing through engaging in running and other activities with local residents and it was natural to have conversations around faith with these new friends. It was clear to Penny that their Christian distinctive was the inclusion of spiritual fitness into this otherwise physical approach. Rather than ‘gospel’ they used ‘spiritual health’ as a way of talking about faith. That did not seem weird with the context of the healthy new town. Their gathering, Sunday Active was born into existing relationships and a culture of openness to a holistic view of fitness and wellbeing.

Fiona’s Tea and Toast Church also emerged from existing friendships and was a natural extension of their community activities. Fiona set up a pop-up café in the school in September 2016 with a team of Christians from a number of different local Churches. Conversations developed showing that there was interest from people to know more about God. From that Tea and Toast Church started in April 2017. This is a monthly café style Church that is informal and family friendly and aimed at new and non-Christians. Tea and Toast Church fits naturally within a context where relationships are developing via a café.

Ali and her family kept an open house with the new community where she lived as initially there were no community buildings. In the early days, the house was used to enable people to meet for coffee, as a venue for young families to get together, for a kids’ club and a place where people could just drop by. So, when someone in the community (unused to church) wanted to start coming to their ‘church’ – which did not exist – they naturally assumed that people gathered at Ali’s house. Ali reflected, ‘Right from the start people seemed to feel comfortable and it just felt like a natural extension of the other things we were doing.’ Ali also noted the importance of someone in the community asking for a church gathering rather than the Christian team suggesting it. This was significant firstly, because of the importance of being invited into a faith sharing space, rather than imposing faith on the community and secondly, because Ali and the core team believed that God would tell them what to do through the community and this felt like the Holy Spirit inviting them to join in with God’s mission.

Accessible Content

Penny built on the familiarity of activities like the Park Run. They gather early on a Sunday morning and offer three different physical activities. This is followed by breakfast together and a short, focussed time exploring spiritual health together. The talks explore a variety of themes relevant to those who gather using a variety of media, includes discussion around tables and ends with take away thought and prayer. From Sunday Active, a second session, Sunday Active extra has developed with deeper bible discussion and worship. Penny ensured that everyone knew that Sunday Active was not competitive but rather celebrating achievement, and that those who were unable, or did not want, to join in the active session, were still welcome to breakfast and the spiritual fitness session.

Fiona shared ‘I don’t use Christian jargon. All my talks at tea and toast church are at Alpha level and don’t assume that people have a faith. Long detailed in-depth sermons are not what I have been called to do. I am there to make God accessible for people that don’t know him like introducing two friends that you think might get on.’

Ali had a bag of costumes from a community nativity play and therefore responded to the question ‘apart from Christmas and Easter, do we know anything else about Jesus’ with scratch dramas over the first year exploring the life of Jesus.

No hard sell

Neither Fiona nor Ali directly invited people to the new Gathering, they both shared naturally. Ali had been ascribed power in the community which she didn’t want to misuse by making people feel obliged to come to the Gathering. The Gathering was public knowledge, however and some people approached Ali and asked to join in whilst others were invited by members of the community who were also exploring faith (see Jn 4:29-30, 39-41).

Learning Points

Both Penny and Ali had good ideas about what a gathering might look like in their new community, but both learnt to hold back and wait for God’s leading.

Engaging With New Housing